2015—To protect the lives of fetuses, Robert L. Dear kills three adults and wounds nine more at Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic.
2011—Busted for trading meth to a male informant for sex, ex-Arapahoe County (Colo.) Sheriff Patrick Sullivan is put in a jail named after himself.
1976—For accidentally plugging his bass player, Jerry Lee Lewis is fined for discharging a gun within city limits.
1963—LBJ’s Warren Commission is established to deny the possibility that conspirators assassinated JFK.
1960—On learning that Patrice Lumumba had been arrested on a CIA tip, genial ol’ Ike orders that agency to step up its efforts to assassinate Castro.
1944—U-1230 drops off two Nazi spies at Hancock Point, Maine.
1900—Future Nazi radio propagandist Axis Sally is born Mildred Sisk in Portland, Maine.
1864—Ignoring a truce flag, Col. (& ex-minister) John Chivington leads a Colorado militia in the slaughter and mutilation of 150 Cheyenne women, children, and old men at Sand Creek. A local paper says the soldiers had “covered themselves in glory” [a typo].
1781—His ship Zong low on water, captain Luke Collingwood orders 133 enslaved souls thrown overboard live, to stick underwriters with the loss.
1729—The Natchez people repay decades of haughty brutality by massacring 230 Frenchmen. Women and enslaved Africans are spared.